John G. Parke graduated second in his class at West Point in 1849 and was assigned to the Army Corps of Topological Engineers, an elite group of...
Lt. John G. Parke: Army Topographic Engineer
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The Navajos Nail It
Leave it to the Navajos to put an eloquent name on those unique summer storms that roll across northern Arizona this time of year. They refer to...
Julian Street
The heyday of Cripple Creek began around 1890 when a cowboy named Bob Womack found gold. For years he’d been telling anybody who’d listen the narrow...
The Anti Horse Thief Association
The Anti Horse Thief Association was an important citizen-based crime fighting outfit in the Old West. It got its start in the late 1850s, battling...
Shakers On The Decline
Word has come that one of three remaining members of the Shakers religious sect has died. The group believes in celibacy, which has caused its...
Salting A Gold Mine
Mining Camp author Brete Harte wrote: "The ways of a man with a maid are strange, but tame, when compared to a man with a mine when buying or...
Jedidiah Smith
Life in the wilderness took a heavy toll on the health and often the lives of the mountain men. Those hardy trappers, who roamed the Rockies in the...
Prospector’s Faith
It was in the spring of 1850 when the word of the incredible richness of gold at a place called Downie's Flat swept downstream and sent a crowd of...
Debbie Reynolds’ Film Memorabilia
Film legend Debbie Reynolds—who died on December 28—was not just a consummate entertainer. She was a collector of film memorabilia, including...
Eli Wallach
The late character actor Eli Wallach was offered the role of Tuco in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly because of his work four years earlier as...
Outgunned by a Skunk
By the early 1900s, the law was closing in on outlaws like the Wild Bunch. Modern technology such as telephones was making it easier to track the...
Almost A Western: The Streets of Laredo
Screen icons John Wayne, Henry Fonda and James Stewart all appeared together in just one film: 1962’s How the West Was Won, although none of them...